This is my personal blog which I began in February 2001. I called it The Obvious? when I wrote anonymously and chose the name to reflect the fact I have to overcome my inhibitions about stating the obvious!

Jon Husband pointed me to an interesting post translating the thoughts of Mario Tronti on the politics of work. While I found a lot to agree with, for instance the following quote, I found the "up the workers", "them and us" paranoia uncomfortable.

Is it not true that today the social figure of the exploited brings together the worker in the great factory, the employee of the small service company, the precarious call-centre worker, the college graduate baby-sitter, the teacher or professor commuting while she awaits a permanent post, the labourer risking his life in one of the many thousands of subcontracted firms, the immigrant construction worker, the part-time researcher technician and the scandalously underpaid, or even not paid, contract lecturer, all the way to the self-employed worker filing his tax returns who, compared to rest, has the privilege of exploiting himself? We could go on and on. Asking what worker means after the working class is the same thing as wondering what the Left is after the workers’ movement. This is well and truly an epochal problem.

If there is a "system" then we are all trapped by it - the haves as well as the have nots. I know as many unhappy "managers" as I know unhappy "workers". There are a lot of people in the city currently realising that money isn't the root of all happiness and we have all been culpable in the slide towards thinking that stuff is what matters rather than relationships and ideas.

The challenge, as touched on in Dave Snowden's post referred to previously, will be to allow "small pieces loosely joined" to work without turning it into a system.

Post 9/11 I remember feeling an excitement that positive change might become more likely but I have no more confidence that the current turmoil will lead to that change unless enough of us start doing something about it.